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5 Major Media Misquotes That Hurt Israel’s Image During the War
The BBC logo is seen at the entrance at Broadcasting House, the BBC headquarters in central London. Photo by Vuk Valcic / SOPA Images/Sipa USA.
There is a meme (a humorous image generally posted on social media) that has been widely shared online for years.
It depicts a black-and-white image of 16th US President Abraham Lincoln with a quotation: “The problem with quotes found on the internet is that they are often not true.”
While it is clear to everyone that it is a fake Lincoln quote, the same cannot be said of every false quotation.
Whether deliberate or by mistake — either a mistranslation or a misquotation — here are some of the most outrageous examples of false quotes published by the media since the start of the war.
1. BBC News Claims Israel “Targeting” Medics
In November 2023, the BBC was forced to issue an apology after one of its anchors misquoted a Reuters report during a live broadcast, and claimed that the IDF was targeting medical professionals during its raid on Gaza’s Al Shifa Hospital, which had been used as a Hamas command center.
Reuters correctly quoted an IDF spokesman: “Our medical teams and Arabic-speaking soldiers are on the ground to ensure that these supplies reach those in need.”
However, the BBC instead announced on-air that the Israeli military was “targeting people including medical teams as well as Arab speakers.”
An apology was later read out by a second presenter, who announced: “What we should have said is that IDF forces included medical staff and Arabic speakers for this operation. We apologize for this error, which fell below our usual editorial standards.”
The IDF clearly states it is bringing medical teams & Arabic speakers into Al-Shifa Hospital to help patients.@BBCNews reinterprets it to libel the IDF as *targeting* medical teams & Arabic speakers.
Just how much lower can the BBC go? https://t.co/I9kVy3MC87
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) November 15, 2023
2. Israel’s “Genocidal” Intent
In January, a staff writer at The Atlantic, Yair Rosenberg, penned a piece headlined, ‘What Constitutes a Smoking Gun?‘ in part to reference the case brought by South Africa against Israel in the International Court of Justice.
Rosenberg discussed comments made by the Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in the early days of the war, in which he allegedly declared that Israel was “fighting human animals,” and that “Gaza won’t return to what it was before … We will eliminate everything.”
The remark was suggested by the likes of NPR and the BBC as evidence of Israel’s intention to violate international humanitarian law.
The major problem with this, Rosenberg pointed out, was that the quote attributed to Gallant was inaccurate.
What Gallant actually said when he addressed a group of soldiers just three days after the Hamas massacre was: “Gaza will not return to what it was before. There will be no Hamas. We will eliminate it all.”
Rosenberg explained:
This isn’t a matter of interpretation or translation. Gallant’s vow to ‘eliminate it all’ was directed explicitly at Hamas, not Gaza. One doesn’t even need to speak Hebrew, as I do, to confirm this: The word Hamas is clearly audible in the video […]
And yet, the misleadingly truncated version of Gallant’s quote has not just been circulated on NPR and the BBC. The New York Times has made the same elision twice, and it appeared in The Guardian, in a piece by Kenneth Roth, the former head of Human Rights Watch. It was also quoted in The Washington Post, where a writer ironically claimed that Gallant had said “the quiet part out loud,” while quietly omitting whom Gallant was actually talking about.
As Rosenberg observed, the Gallant misquoting error had profound consequences — it “misled readers, judges, and politicians.”
3. The “500 Dead” in Hospital Blast
The Al-Ahli Hospital blast was perhaps the most outrageous example of poor journalism since the onset of the war.
Numerous respected media organizations abandoned basic journalistic due diligence and immediately blamed Israel for “striking” the medical facility and killing hundreds of civilians in the process.
Evidence quickly emerged that a misfired Islamic Jihad rocket was responsible, and that the death toll was nowhere near 500.
However, author and journalist David Zweig noticed that this was not the only media malpractice that occurred in the reportage of the Ah-Ahli explosion.
In an article on his Substack, Zweig questioned where the “500 killed” line that was uncritically parroted by the media had originated.
After tracking down where the first mention of this figure occurred (in a social media post by Qatari mouthpiece Al Jazeera), Zweig said there was “zero evidence” that was what the Hamas-run health ministry had said.
Zweig explained:
Beyond the evidentiary particulars in the debate over the origin of the blast is the question of whether news outlets should uncritically report claims from Hamas, including, or perhaps especially, when it provides statistics […]
Yet assessing whether or not Hamas’s claims are credible is a step beyond the most basic consideration: Did the media accurately report what a Hamas spokesperson said?
Zweig hypothesizes that Al Jazeera’s English account published the false information based on an interview given by Ashraf Al-Qidra, a spokesman in Gaza’s health ministry.
Here’s a thread of all the news articles from outlets that were incredibly quick to blame Israel, taking statements from Hamas at face value. @CNN quick reminder, the Health Ministry in Gaza is run by Hamas. pic.twitter.com/wl5CynI3q1
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) October 17, 2023
4. Isaac Herzog’s “Entire Nation”Comments
Sometimes misquoting is not done by altering the words of a statement, but by omitting parts of a statement to alter its overall meaning or intention.
This was true of the remarks made by Israeli President Isaac Herzog at a news conference held just five days after the October 7 Hamas attacks.
Speaking to reporters, Herzog said that he held “an entire nation” responsible for the massacre, which he later stressed in an op-ed was a reference to the many Palestinian civilians who also took part in the killings and sexual assaults inside Israel, as well as the crowds in Gaza who desecrated the bodies of dead Israelis that were brought back as trophies.
In the same October 12 press conference, Herzog said there was no excuse for killing innocent civilians, and confirmed Israel’s commitment to respecting the international laws of war.
Yet, the comments from Herzog that found their way into news reports were the former, with media outlets paraphrasing them in headlines such as, “Israeli President Suggests That Civilians In Gaza Are Legitimate Targets.”
President Herzog later criticized the South African prosecution that brought a case against Israel in the International Court of Justice for knowingly twisting his words to suggest genocidal intent on Israel’s part in the war.
5. CBS Misquotes the Pope
As is tradition on the Christian holiday Easter Sunday, Pope Francis presided over Mass in St Peter’s Square in the Vatican and delivered his “Urbi et Orbi” blessing from the balcony.
During the speech, he addressed the war in Gaza and called for a ceasefire and for the “prompt release of the hostages seized on 7 October last and for an immediate cease-fire in the Strip.”
Yet, when CBS News reported the Pope’s address, the word “hostages” had been substituted for “prisoners.”
It was a baffling decision that suggested CBS News saw some kind of equivalence between the innocent Israelis kidnapped on October 7 and the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails for whom they may be swapped under the terms of a deal with Hamas.
It is a subtle mistake but an insidious one.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
The post 5 Major Media Misquotes That Hurt Israel’s Image During the War first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War

Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests

A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan

Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.